Smell the stupid

We know that the Oklahoman loves to shill for the far right, and its letters section is just another way to do that. Letters written in support of progressive politicians or ideas are rarely seen (and when they are, it is usually just a ploy to run powerful replies against them a few days later), while letters attacking the left or hyping the plutocrat-theocrat right will be run-- no matter how stupid the sentiment, or inelegant the writing.

Thus, today we get some more right-wing shilling (and fear-mongering) from Joe Putnam of Oklahoma City. He begins:

Barack Obama says 'no boots on the ground.' In other words, the president has announced that although the American military exists to protect this country, under his command the military won’t be used to thwart a horrible and growing threat to America. Neither does Obama allow the NSA, FBI or CIA to monitor America's mosques.

Wait. "horrible and growing threat to America"? So he's obviously talking about this whole ISIS thing, which is basically a group of hyper-conservative Sunni Muslims who have taken advantage of the political instability in Iraq and Syria to revolt in order to found their own state. So while these people-- who are quite ruthless-- are a threat to Syrians and Iraqis, it's unclear why anyone thinks they are going to be a threat to the United States. Like, do they have airplanes? Or a navy? Because if not, then it's hard to imagine how they could invade a country that's on the other side of the planet.

Right?

But maybe you're thinking: But, terrorists! And that's a good point. But a) ISIS seems to be a movement centered around forming a new state in the Middle East. Like, that's their plan. So killing Americans (or Western Europeans, or Russians, or Mexicans, etc., etc., etc.) with car bombs or plane hijackings doesn't seem to further that agenda, and b) even if if WERE a part of their agenda, a huge ground invasion of Iraq and Syria wouldn't address the threat of terrorism. Like, they could still have some dude flee into Europe and acquire a Swiss passport and board a plane to the US and give him a big credit card so he could buy explosives or whatever and he could still be a terrorists. Sending troops into Syria won't stop that.

But depute the fact Joe Putnam is too stupid to see this, he continues to write:

He sent 4,000 American soldiers to help fight Ebola in Africa because we had two or three casualties from the virus, but he won't send soldiers to fight evil terminators who have killed more Americans than Ebola has and are adamantly committed to killing us all. Muslim fanatics have announced that they intend to take over this country. Our generals are giving Obama good advice about it, but he ignores them.

Wow. So hold on: this guy is so myopic that he can't see how stopping a pandemic might be a good idea given that we know how pandemics can grow, and somehow imagines that because some of these ISIS people are (admittedly gruesomely) executing some Americans who are IN the Middle East then THAT needs to be addressed by sending troops into Syria.

And again: "Muslim fanatics have announced that they intend to take over this country"?? For real? Again: call me when ISIS has an air and naval capability, OK? Also, let' be clear that deliberation is a good thing. This guy is imagining that if Obama says "no troops" that there will never ever be troops sent in. Situations change. Intelligence can inform an opinion once gathered. It's an odd mentality to believe that someone can't ever change their mind.

But he continues:

Wake up, America, and smell the bacon! In the not-too-distant future, with the continuing encroachment of Islam into our lives, we may not be able to do that much longer. This is what happens when you put a community organizer in the job of commander in chief.

OK, this is actually clever: he made a joke about Islam and pork. Get it? I'll give him credit, because that was a funny like. It's also stunningly pathetic to imagine that ISIS is going to take over America, but the joke was funny.

Also: when do we get to stop with the "community organizer" line? Hasn't it lost its luster? Wasn't he also a university professor? And a US Senator? Does anyone think that trying to zing George Bush because he was a cheerleader is an effective line? Oh well.

Anyhow...

The only arrow the people have left in the quiver is our vote. To checkmate Obama, evangelicals and conservatives absolutely must get out and vote Republican in November. For the future of America, it may be the single most important midterm election in the last century.

So there it is: we get to the real punchline. VOTE REPUBLICAN. My guess is that Mr Putnam could have made his letter be just those last two sentences and it would have been run. Like, just write "Theocrats and plutocrats, please vote Republican in November. It's super important."

Real letters unrun

While we often complain about the miserable letters the Oklahoman runs-- indeed that's the point of this blog-- we also try to contribute to improving the discourse by occasionally writing in on various topics. Unfortunately, our letters are, without exception, never run.


When commenting on another person's letter, our policy is not to blog about it, since the Oklahoman clearly states that they won't run letters "that have been published elsewhere or letters submitted to other publications"-- and while whatever we say in this blog would certainly be different in tone and detail from an actual letter to the editor, no doubt some similar phrasing and arguments would be used. Thus, to minimize the chance of an editor not running one of our letters over a technicality, we've held off commenting on a few of the papers more egregious letters of late.


Not like it's helped: our letters don't seem to run regardless. Anyhow...


Back in September, we got this gem from Mike Meador of Edmond, dredging up a zombie topic that right-wingers love to bring up in election season: voter ID laws. He writes:

Regarding "REAL ID law may complicate travel for Oklahoma driver’s license holders" (News, Sep. 14): I find it amusing that state Rep. Jerry McPeak, D-Warner, is accusing some of being hypocritical because they're against the federal law concerning enhanced driver's licenses and for the voter ID requirement. I won’t say I'm against enhanced identification practices for driver's licenses, as they're an almost universal form of identification. However, it seems hypocritical that those who clamor for more compliance to federal laws to enhance our main form of identification can conversely clamor that we don’t need to protect the sacred right of voting by ensuring the legality of the voter. 

For that matter, it seems ludicrous that the federal government, specifically Attorney General Eric Holder, fights for enhanced driver identification but fights against enhanced voter identification.

In a normal blog reply, I'd go for some usual suspects-- like, a) why can't they just link to the article being referenced? Is it that hard? And b) what's with the bolding there? It's like the editors tried extra hard to help this guy prove his point. Which, since it's a point the editors of course support, is entirely expected. And then c) the fact that this guy is an idiot who is ranting against a non-existent threat.


But instead of my normal blog reply, which would feature lots of sarcasm, insults, and harsh language, I'll instead just run my letter that the Oklahoman didn't see fit to run itself:

Mike Meador (Your Views, Sept. 21) finds hypocrisy where there is none. While the threat of terrorism on airlines remains real, voter fraud is non-existent. In his report titled "The Truth About Voter Fraud" (available on-line), Justin Levitt of NYU's Brennan Center for Justice studied various instances of voter irregularities to find that only the tiniest portion represented actual fraud. More frequently, such irregularities stem from honest mistakes-- e.g. a poll worker checking off the recently deceased Alan J. Mandel, instead of the actual voter, Alan J. Mandell. 

Indeed, voter fraud of the type the right clamors so much about is almost non-existent because it is horribly inefficient. Who is going to stand in line, and knowingly impersonate another person (at the risk of going to jail) all to cast one single vote?!? 

In the end, voter ID laws just serve to limit the voting opportunities of the poor and elderly-- people most likely to vote Democratic. And that seems to be the point, as revealed when Pennsylvania State Senate Majority Leader Mike Turzai bragged about it in a speech during the last presidential election. Listing his accomplishments, he said, "Voter ID, which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done." 

The reason the right clamors for voter ID laws is to limit Democratic votes to win elections. Mr. Meador claims that voting is sacred, but he really just means sacred for people who vote the way he does.

It's a straightforward reply to attempt to dispel a myth that is running rampant in some circles. You'd think a newspaper might want to educate its readers about issues, but the Oklahoman isn't a newspaper. It's a propaganda piece for the far right. Thus, while Mr Meador gets to rail against the false threat of voter fraud (and thus push a right-wing agenda point), common sense and basic reality (expressed in our letter) is shunned.


Pathetic.

Disgraceful sentiment

We knew this would happen. A few days ago, the ring wing media echo chamber was up in arms because the President didn't "properly" salute as he was exiting Marine One. The photo of it shows that he's holding a cup of coffee and gives a rather perfunctory salute with coffee in hand:

This outrage obviously prompted Paul Diggs of Oklahoma City to write:

I’ve never been more disappointed in our commander in chief than I am now. I refer to the terrible lack of respect shown by Barack Obama when exiting Marine One and 'saluting' the Marine guard with a coffee cup in his right hand. This is a disgrace! I proudly served this country for 28 years active duty. Obama’s behavior is unacceptable to all veterans. Saluting is an important part of military customs. As the Marine guard renders the salute to his commander in chief, it’s expected that a sharp salute would be given in return.

Really? First off, let's see what the military says here:

Salutes are not required when—
• Indoors, except when reporting to an officer or when on duty as a guard.
• Addressing a prisoner.
• Saluting is obviously inappropriate. In these cases, only greetings are exchanged. (Example 1: A person carrying articles with both hands, or being otherwise so occupied as to make saluting impracticable, is not required to salute a senior person or return the salute to a subordinate.)
• Either the senior or the subordinate is wearing civilian clothes.

So, given that a) Obama had a jacket in one hand (or rather, draped over one arm) and a cup of coffee in the other; and b) he was in civilian clothes, Obama really didn't have to salute. He did anyway, giving an unfortunately lackadaisical-looking effort that set the right wing media (and Mr Diggs) all frothing at the mouth.

Obviously it would have been better if Obama hadn't saluted at all-- but we all know that the right wing media would have exploded if he just didn't salute. And that's the point-- people who hate the President (basically everyone on the right) are going to hate him and find things to complain about no matter what.

Remember the whole tan suit thing? Like, seriously, right wing politicians-- not even just media idiots but actual politicians-- were mad about the color of Obama's suit. Even though:

What's that? St. Reagan is wearing a tan suit while hanging out with Lord Voledemort Scalia? What?!?

Oh. OK, right. So that's a lot of not-gray/navy blue/black suits worn by presidents!

Wait-- WWI Vet and 33rd President Harry S Truman, not you, too! Jesus. And that's not even tan!

See what I mean? If Bush gives some crummy salute, no one cares. When Obama does it, the right wing goes into a frenzy. If Obama wears a tan suit, some nut job is all up in arms even if a tan suit is sort of normal and plenty of people wear tan suits. (Let's agree, it could have been much worse!)

Feet on the desk? If Obama does it, some right-winger whines about respect and complains endlessly. But if Bush does it? No one cares. Hell, if you replaced Reagan with Obama in this photo:

You know that the right wing media would just totally blow up-- and no doubt the right wing thralls who read the Oklahoman would write in complaining about Obama's lack of respect or whatever.

Which brings us to the main point: this whole salute thing is a non-story. It isn't a real issue, and there are obviously things a commander in chief has done that are far more disappointing and disgraceful. But that doesn't matter, because this paper isn't about any of that. Instead, it just serves to disparage Democrats-- and obviously a Democratic President-- no matter what. There's a word for that: propaganda, and this paper is nothing but a right wing propaganda machine.